The Boxer Rebellion
by TakisAngel
Summary: The Boxer Rebellion. A time of nationalism and hatred for the west. China, with his Dowager Empress, Tzu Hsi, experiences this time of strife in all of its glory. Historical hetalia.


The Qing Dynasty, or as he liked to call himself, China, was in incredible, violent pain.

"Uff, I think I feel another- BLEGH!" the oldest nation in the world managed to get out before keeling over the bucket once more.

"Hmm. Did you eat anything weird today?" his empress Tzu Hsi asked calmly, inspecting her nails as her country, her subject she would reign over her entire life, barfed into a small bucket, groaning in pain. She had been startled at first of course, she wasn't a monster, but after a few months, one got immune to the sight of the dignified ancient puking his guts out in a bucket and then complaining about it nonstop. After reading books about the immortal written by her honorable forebearers (it really was amazing what those old men knew about Yao), she had concluded that this was just normal pre-civil war behavior, and also to never let the man near rotten seafood he might even remotely find attractive (long story).

"You are so cold hearted you peasant whore faced- BLEGH!" Yao Wang barfed again, before collapsing on the floor and staring at the golden ceiling with empty eyes.

"It'll go away soon. I can only do so much Yao," Tzu Hsi explained, signalling to her servants to carry the well used bucket away. The poor servants scurried towards the ill man and yanked the bucket out of his sight, glancing at the ancient with fear filled eyes and quick feet. Yao hadn't exactly taken his illness well, to say the least, and those servants usually got the brunt of the rage. Tzu Hsi resolved to pay them more so that they wouldn't commit mutiny, after all, loyalty was one of the easiest things to buy, before going back to studying her nails.

"Why can't you FIX IT THEN!" Yao roared, still holding his stomach, glaring at his empress and muttering about how he should have never let her come to power. As if one man would have stopped the former concubine, honestly, she scuffed internally.

"Well, my most humble charge and possession, I am a little to busy making sure those barbarians of the west don't rip your heart out and dance over our corpses. They'll stop at nothing to tear you apart and make you their little pet dog, so unless you want to be swallowed under the influence of the rapidly growing empire of Japan and the men of the west, with their guns and cannons that we can't match, I suggest you sit tight and let me do my job, okay dear?"

"God I hate you."

"I know sweet heart, now tell me, how does the _I Ho Ch'uan_ fare this fine day? Have they made any progress?" the empress asked calmly, mask firmly in place as Yao grunted and closed his eyes, searching for the group that has been screaming inside his head too much lately. _Kill the Christian devils kill the western pig dogs kill the foreigners that make us pay so much kill THEM ALL kill-_

"They're still there. Running around in my brain. I think they got stronger, but it's hard to tell with all the yelling."

"Hmm," Tzu Hsi noted. "And what are your thoughts on them? The peasantry side, I mean."

Yao again searched his brain, sweeping all of his people in a fraction of a second, scanning their heart, their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams, every little thing they have ever done hidden in the core of their memories.

"They still hate the westerners," Yao concluded, prompting a huff from the empress, who signalled for the quivering servants in the corner to get her more tea. "They hate them so much, except for the Christians. I can feel it seeping in my brain. They want to storm Peking, they want to regain my honor, they want to-"

"That's enough Yao, I get the point. We'll keep the same strategy we currently have, and if there is a change in sentiment, we might alter it a fraction. Do tell me when something happens sweetheart, and make sure not to puke on my carpet, they are worth more than everything you own times a multiple of three," Tzu Hsi commanded, fluffing her hair in the mirror and preparing to leave the bedroom, passing the luxurious bed with gold woven into the seams, and not even glancing at the gloriously decorated ceiling picturing gods and demons of old.

"What about the Christians, Empress Tzu Hsi?" The woman froze in place and turned around, eyes cold and mask glued on at the mention of her title that Yao avoided like the plague.

"What of them?"

"They are dying. They're in my head too you know. Begging for you, for soldiers, for anyone to save them. The _I Ho Ch'uan_ are slaughtering them, and even if the majority of the voices say that the Christians should die, they are still your people. My people."

"Don't speak such nonsense Yao," she snapped, mask slipping and irritation swirling into her eyes as she calmly walked to the man, still lying on the floor with an unspoken emotion of his own gritting his teeth. "The Christians are simply byproducts of westerners coming into our lands and sowing their hateful seed among our people. You dare think that I would change my entire strategy of keeping my people safe from Western canons by bending over backwards to protect some minority, and have the entirety of my country wanting to get rid not only of me, but my court, and anyone who stands in the way of the barbarians and your death?" She knelt down to the ancient, eyes blazing, and grabbed his collar, forcing him to look at her as she towered above him. "I have to keep the westerners happy. I HAVE to make sure they feel secure as they walk on the bones of our people. I NEED them to think they've won this fight. At the same time, my humble little Yao," she jerked him closer to her face, eyes narrowing, "I have to keep the peasants, the nobles, the very fabric of our society happy. I have to keep the people who want to destroy the westerners from storming into Peking and ruining EVERYTHING I have tried to build, HAPPY." She dropped him onto the floor, eyes burning with fire that have seen too much, that had sacrificed too much. Yao stared at his stone empress, and the former concubine stared back. "To let the Christians flourish would be an insult to everything China has done over the millennia, it would ruin everything my ancestors and forebearers tried to construct and shape into the most brilliant civilization the world has ever seen. If I let this, this DESPICABLE religion foster, I risk my throne, my country, and my people's sanity. The mandate of heaven only goes so far, as my enemies are well aware. The _I Ho Ch'uan,_ or as the barbarians call them, Boxers, are a terrible group to be sure, but they are an outlet for the anger and resentment the entirety of China feels right now, and when they fail, the the hatred and deathly feelings that haunt our people will be dead as well." She broke their gaze and glided back to the door, preparing to leave.

"And if they succeed?" Yao whispered, making his empress whip around and bark out a laugh.

"HA! If, by some miracle, they succeed in driving all the westerners out of China, then me and the court can deny any involvement, easy as that. What can the foreigners prove? One way or another, silence is the only option, and even better, the court will gain popularity for seemingly siding with the radicals. So sweetheart, don't worry yourself. Mother has this in the bag." Tzu Hsi walked out of the room, slamming the door and rattling the immortals teeth. The anger simmered in the air for a little longer before clearing away, leaving an empty man who sat against the wall, voices screaming to kill the ones who hate him, and a tiny, glimmer of a fraction softly whispering in the cracks of his cavernous mind to leave them all alone. Of course, Yao always was a terrible listener.

"What is it Yao?" Empress Tzu Hsi sighed, inspecting the flower petals in the royal garden as a exhausted man ran to her, panting and wheezing in panic. "Are there no dumplings in the kitchen again? You really have to stop taking all your anger out on them, their loyalty is getting expensive."

"What are you TALKING about?! I'm here because of the _I Ho Ch'uan_ have attacked the Foreign Legation District!" Yao wheezed, scowling at the only slightly surprised empress, and pointing towards the place where all the foreign diplomats were held.

"Hmm. So they have. Tell me Yao, what do you feel right now?" She inspected the flower closer, the dew giving the reflection of the enraged immortal a soft glow.

"What? Why does that MATTER?! Your people are dying! I can feel them dying! The smoke, the screams, it's just-"

"Yao, just tell me how the people feel. Save the preaching for later," snapped the empress, whipping around at the startled ancient.

Yao gritted his teeth and searched his mind once more. "The people are mad. They want this," he realized. Screaming and roaring exploded inside his head, having gained more access into his mind once he had let them in, and slithering into every crevice his ancient mind had to offer. The small section of his heart that was burning howled to be destroyed, to completely annihilate the foreigners. Ears ringing, he stumbled and grasped onto a tree, the yelling and faint mummers swirling and colliding in his brain, where he couldn't even hear his own thoughts, or if they were his at all.

"Exactly. And, by default, you want this too, am I not correct?" The empress stared at the gaping man, who quickly went through thousands of emotions all at once, flickering and tearing each other apart through his expressions. The Qing Dynasty collapsed to the floor, hands on the ground and wide eyes gazing unseeing on the ground.

"Yao? You must get up, you'll ruin your robes," she advised walking up to the man and motioning for the startled servants that were standing some distance away to come and help the immortal up. "Yao?" She knelt down to see the thousand year old man was crying, fear, hatred, and many more emotions she could never describe trickling down his face.

"Make it stop Cixi. Please, just make it stop," he sobbed, gripping her silk robes tight and leaning into the empress, who was as white as the flickering flower petals besides them. She wrapped her arms around the broken child and tried to comfort him as he rambled on about how much it hurt, _oh how it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. Why won't it stop hurting?_

"Shh. Don't worry Yao, I'm right here. No need to be afraid, I'm here now. I'll fix it. It'll be okay, little one, I'm here, " she whispered to the quivering man, who leaned in even more into her embrace and let out a racking sob. Silently, she motioned for the servants to take him away as he stopped sobbing and stilled himself into sleep several hours later. She looked worriedly at the ancient as he was carried to his room. The only time she had ever seen Yao cry, was, well, when he lost everything in the Opium Wars and the war in Korea. And that hasn't been like that, like he was being torn apart from the inside out.

"You majesty! The court requires your presence!" a soldier nearby barked, bowing deep as she walked past and into the palace once more, leaving the fallen snow of the flower petals far behind, to be whispered into the wind.

The world was black and white, red and gold, swirling flashes of brown eyes and ruby fire, fading to dirt brown and back to midnight once more. Visions flashed behind Yao's closed eyes, scorching and slithering into his brain and screaming his mind awake, even though the man laid still on his cot, drowning under the weight of the memories and souls of people now gone. The first vision was of before he was dragged under the weight of sleep, a man creeping up to a foreigner and strangling him, leaving the westerner to die as the man left for more victims. A German man being carried by bent over Chinese servants, gritting their teeth and glaring at the foreigner with hatred, and screaming in delightful triumph as the mob tore him into pieces. The smell of smoke choking its way into homes, and fire licking up libraries and buildings in the diplomatic districts as onlookers stared in awe.

More and more snatches of memories and fragments of emotions flooded Yao, keeping him weighted down to the bottom of his conscious, even as he struggled and reached out for the barrier of consciousness, begging to wake up and be freed from the nightmare of memories that torrented over him.

A splatter of blood on a stainless kitchen floor. A group of men stabbing others in the gut and laughing away as they bled on the ground, eyes too hazy to see which side was which. Fire consuming a struggling child, trying to claw his way out of a wooden prison. Structures crumbling down and crushing those underfoot with no warning, there and then not. A wailing baby crying out for its mother. A group of fighters mobbing around several men, lobbing them with rocks until they cried out no more. A burning flag. Limp hands grasping at nothing and being pulled towards a mass grave. Fearful onlookers who peered into the destruction but did not interfere. An edict from the empress being read out loud to a wide eyed family, declaring that China was now at war with all nations that had diplomatic ties in their lands. Snarls from stray dogs as they ripped corpses apart. Westerners fighting the mob with their fists, no weapons in sight. Strange prayers sobbed by Christians before their brutal execution. A large group of children stepping on a mine, and the sound of sixty six hearts stopping their beat. Mines exploding at a tip of a hat. Westerners trying to break into the city. On and on it went, day after day, week after week, Yao gripping onto consciousness and waking for a few moments, before being dragged back down again by the howling demons of his people once more.

The few times he managed to pull himself out he thought he heard a woman sobbing, gripping his hands and whispering confessions that were lost to him as he sank back down again. Then he thought he heard someone muttering about an invasion force, eyes glancing at the man before slinking away. As time wore on, he found a foothold in his mind as the torrent lessened, and hauled himself out of the pit of memories.

He slowly floated to consciousness, and fluttered his eyes open before slamming them tight again at the blinding rays glowing into his eyes. He covered his face and looked around the room he had spent the past 60 days in, squinting at the sight of the golden couches and luxurious bed that went on and on. He knew this room. This was the empress's personal quarters.

A servant whistled into the room, sweep and mop in hand, casually turning to look around the quarters, when her eyes met the tired pits of hell that gazed from the immortal who had spent the past 2 months in a coma.

"AAAAAH! EMPRESS THE MAN IS AWAKE!" she shrieked in terror, zipping out of the room and dropping her cleaning tools like rocks. After a few minutes of ruckus and hassle, Empress Tzu Hsi shot into the room, panting and eyes whipping around to find the man that had been technically dead for the past 2 months. Her eyes met his in a matter of seconds, and she almost gave a sob of relief as she ran to her elder and hugged him tighter than she ever had before.

"I'm so glad you're alive!" she sobbed, squeezing him tighter despite his protest.

"Empress, I love the fact that I'm alive too but I need. To. BREATHE!" She quickly let him go and watched in amusement as her charge wheezed in pain, gasping in air and giving a glare that the Empress now accepted with a smile. "Did you really have to hug me so tightly?! Are you trying to kill me Cixi?!"

"If I wanted to kill you old friend, I would let the barbarians do it for me," she chuckled, eyes still glowing with the fact that Yao was still, amazingly, alive. It had been a hectic 2 months, as could be seen by her tousled hair and worried hands, but seeing her old friend back on his feet gave the old empress a rush of relief, and the thought that maybe, just maybe, they'll get through this okay.

"What happened while I was, um, occupied?" Yao asked, mouth dry and eyes furrowed from the effort of trying to scan a million brains at once, to try and see whatever he missed while he was, er, other wised occupied.

"The _I Ho' Ch'uan_ captured and held the Foreign Legation District for 55 days, and the westerners, now calling themselves the 'Eight Nation Alliance,'" -Yao scoffed at that, honestly those western nations were so vain- "sent in an invading force." The woman looked down at the ground, shoulders dropping with the weight of a thousand lives. The immortal furrowed his brows further at the sight of the unbreakable stone woman almost looking...defeated.

"What happened?"

"Yao, do you know what day it is?" Yao shook his head, and the empress sighed. "It's August 14th, well, it's almost the 15th, but you understand. The British have just breached the Legation Quarter, as well as the French and the Japanese. They are coming to save their diplomats, as well as kill ours as the same time. They've defeated our people, or the Boxers as the foreigners do graciously call them," she scoffed. She opened her mouth to continue when a servant rushed in.

"Your majesty, the escape team is ready."

"Escape team?" Yao turned towards the empress who was dragging him up and pushing him towards the door. "What are you doing? Why are you-"

"I need you to be quiet right now, okay Yao. Put these on," she handed the immortal some clothes and pushed him out the door, grabbing some peasant clothes herself and rushing down the hall.

"Where are we going?" he asked as they went down secret passageway after secret passageway, some steps dull and slippery from the weight of a thousand servants over a thousand years, others frigid and choked filled with dust, rapid feet disturbing the air for the first time in centuries. On and on it went, one moment in midnight darkness, another in soft candle light, and then another in a rarely used room that words never disturbed. Yao ran after his empress, lungs, accustomed to the slow draw of sleep, straining with the effort of keeping up with the frantic woman and the few servants that followed her. His heart flew with beat of a thousand drums as he panted down the final passageway, and as he looked around the abandoned courtyard, and the dark ocean color of the sky, he questioned his empress once again.

"Why are we out here at this time of day? And why are we escaping?!" The empress ignored him and started speaking in hushed tones to a bent over peasant, who quickly motioned to a large cart that pulled up besides them. "Cixi, what's going on?!"

"No time to explain, get in the cart!" She shoved him down inside the hay filled cart, which groaned under his weight but quickly settled back to its previous state. Yao looked around the musty hay filled cart, trying to squint past the veil of darkness that had settled over his eyes, when a solid bag of rocks was thrown into his side.

"MOTHER F-"

"Shut up!" a very pissed empress whispered, making clear that the bag of rocks was actually the most holy person in the empire. A few more thuds reverberated as the now crowded cart swallowed more people, and after a few kicks and shoves to establish leg room, the cart was yanked along, rocking happily as its packages muttered hate filled whispers to each other.

"Now can you tell me what;s going on?" Yao hissed, seeing the tried white reflections of Tzu Hsi's eyes blink back at him, before they closed and an explanation finally came.

"We are escaping."

"Really? Oops, my bad, I thought we were taking a vacation to JAPAN!"

"No need to be so sarcastic," a man behind him muttered, and Yao whipped around to see who it was. The Guangxu Emperor glared back at him, and the small handful of servants that had accompanied them whispered among themselves as the cart continued to rock.

"Yao, please, be sensible. We are the most high ranking members of government in all of China, and foreigners have just breached the Legation quarter. We aren't safe in Peking. We need to escape, you know this," the Dowager Empress sighed, shuffling in place and trying to smooth her hair. It was only then that Yao realized that the normally elegantly dressed empress was boasting simple peasant clothes, huffing and pulling at the seams that were a breath away of shambling apart. "And if you think that I'm going to leave the most important man of all of China, that is, China itself, inside the doomed pit of a city, you are dead wrong, especially now that you are alive and breathing. You aren't going anywhere near that city, or the fire. China has enough troubles already."

"Wait, you are dragging me away from my people?!"

"In a sense, yes. But only for your own good," Cixi explained, patting the stunned empire on the head and digging into the sides of the cart to get comfortable. "And don't worry Yao. I hear the muslim province of Xi'an is lovely this time of year."

"Empress Dowager Cixi, perhaps you should not sign this deal," an advisor panted as the Empress and the personification of the Qing Empire speed walked down the hall, leaving a couple of their advisors in the dust. Except for one. This one was persistent. "The war can be continued, your majesty! China is impenetrable! We can still-"

"Be practical," Cixi snapped. The advisor jerked to a halt as they stopped in front of the diplomatic room. "The terms are, well, not the best, to say the least, but with this agreement we don't have to cede any territory to the westerners, something you could not ensure if we continued this futile war."

The empress dismissed her panting advisors with a flick of her wrist, leaving her and Yao relatively alone, with servants' hushed tones all that interrupted them now. As the two were about to enter the room, Yao couldn't help but add, "Not to mention you get to keep your throne."

"Yes, that is a bonus," she smiled, mask firmly in place as Yao was suddenly blasted by the auras of the nations in the room, making it hard to breathe with the power radiating off and around the staunch corners of the gloriously painted walls.

"Well, well, well, turns out the great and mighty Qing Empire is alive after all. This is great news, da?" A tall russian man continued giving a chilling smile as his own diplomat frowned, immune to the spike in anger that had festered in the room, though Yao was sure it wasn't only Russia that was giving it off.

"Yao, let's cut this short," a blond Englishman said brusquely, shuffling a few papers and getting straight to the point. "The war preparations will be 45,000,000 taels, paid over a period of at most 39 years, with 4 percent interest each year. As discussed previously, through your other ambassadors, the tariff will be raise from 3.15 percent to 5 percent. There will be retribution, i.e, execution, for the top ten ranking officials involved in this incident, and we will be allowed to station troops to protect our citizens." England droned on, listing the details of the Boxer Protocol, the treaty he was here to sign. Yao started to tune out, and instead inspected the eight nations that sat before him. Well, 10, counting the weird red eyed demon and the loud mouthed Italian that cursed his face red.

The ones closest to him was the Italies, in fact, and the scent of well cooked spaghetti and sloppily hidden resentment curled around them and in his general vicinity, laughing and smacking the other on the head whenever the Englishman stumbled into a foreign sounding word in his document. A speckled man and a day dreaming woman sat next to the pair, whispering about something called a symphony and the woman threatening death whenever the white haired man beside her spoke. The German Empire sat there awkwardly, the strange blond hair of foreigners being pushed back into strict order when the red eyed man gestured anything or nudged him. Russia, with the same, almost sociopathic smile, fixed upon his face, sat completely still, only moving whenever the American next to him barked something and fell into chuckling fits. The United States of America sat tall next to all the others, clearly proud at scoring a seat in the big guy table. The boy had grown so much over the past half century, with a couple scars of his own peeking past his clothing only to be hushed away again with a flick of the hand. France gave a leer to the nervous American, poking him in the side and making the young nation's face go red with a few well placed winks. England continued in monotone besides the Frenchman, trying to block out everyone's stares of boredom and the blond man's nudges for attention. A single person sat rigidly next to the British Empire, looking everywhere in the room except Yao's eyes, awkwardly fidgeting with his hands and taking quick glances towards the Englishman before looking down. Yao felt his teeth grit as Japan continued to fidget, and time dragged on until the British Empire's droning voice came to a sudden end.

"-and that is the end. Any questions?" England finished.

"Yeah, when are we gonna sign this thing? I'm super bored and can't feel my feet," the United States complained, earning glances of pity from around the table. Clearly the man wasn't familiar with the long sessions of diplomacy.

"I agree with Fredka, let us get his over with, da?" Russia quipped.

"Oui, this has gone on too long for my beautiful tastes. Let us rob Yao and leave."

"Nein, we are not robbing him."

"Only stealing his money, executing his officials, and closing his forts," Hungary rebuked, while Austria rolled his eyes.

"Stop harassing mein bruder! At least he has an actual economy!"

"SILENCE!" England roared, making all of the mouths of the Eight Nation Alliance clamp shut. "We don't want another WAR on our hands! We will sign the treaty now!"

Yao sat up, walking towards the signing table with his silent Empress besides him. Quickly he hissed to her, "Just to be clear, we're not going to execute General Dong Fuxiang are we?"

"Don't be silly Yao, of course not," she hissed back, smiling at the other diplomats in the room. "Just let them think we are." Yao felt a bubble of laughter reach his lips, showing itself in a small, almost invisible smile.

The signing was mercifully brief, and Yao turned to skip out of the room in relief when a hand grabbed his bruised shoulder (long story) and pulled him aside. Yao whipped around to see a stammering United States smiling back at him.

"Hey, um, China, I just wanted you to know that most of the money I get from the reparations and stuff will go to paying for Chinese people's education in the States," he rushed, rubbing the back of his head and looking at the ground.

"Really?" China couldn't believe it.

"Yeah!" The American gave a heart fluttering grin and continued with excited hand gestures. "It's called the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program! And to make sure the students are ready I'm- I mean, the United States government," he corrected, "Is going to start a preparatory school so they can learn English!" Yao couldn't help but lift the corners of his mouth at the sight of the excited nation. His cheer was almost contagious.

"Thank you," he sighed, patting the shoulder of the nation and preparing to leave. The aura of the room was suffocating him, with his own being fractured and cracking under the combined weight of the most powerful nations in the world crowded into a shared space. The American drawn his attention one last time, grabbing his turned shoulder once again.

"I just wanted you to know, that, um, some of the reparations are going to a good place." America dropped his hand, a worn smile still rested on his face. "At least there's that."

"Yes. At least there's that," he nodded, sighing once again and walking away. He past Japan on his way out, though the man didn't have the courage to even look at him in the eye. China muttered something on his way out of the diplomatic room, back to his still reigning empress, smirking happily at the poor fools who thought they could try and outsmart the former concubine. Back to his falling empire, the one that was crumbling at the seams under a poorly hidden cart. Back to the endless sleep of the worn, tired peasants that couldn't fight the changes the empire would rip out of them. Back to the sickness and foul disease that festered around Asia, with Mongolia baring his teeth and Tibet standing tall, with Japan growing stronger and foreigners crawling onto the continent that had no way to keep the insects at bay. Back to the empire he knew so well. As he past the door, he whispered the words to be lost in the crackling auras and hushed tones of diplomats, in the smirks of empresses and empires alike.

"At least there's that."


End file.
